Maltego is an open-source intelligence (OSINT) and graphical link analysis tool for gathering and connecting information for investigative tasks (forensics). Developed by Paterva in 2007. Its supports platform like Linux, macOS, and windows.
It offers the power to mine data from different sources using transforms through the transform hub, automatically merging matching information onto a graph.
The users are permitted to make custom entities, allowing it to represent any sort of information added to the essential entities that are a part of the software.
Maltego is used by users ranging, from investigative journalists, security professionals to forensic investigators, and researchers.
There are different editions of the Maltego software.
Maltego Community Edition
Maltego Community Edition, or CE for short, is the free version of Maltego. The main limitation of the CE edition is, it cannot be used for commercial purposes and, there are limitations on the utmost number of Entities which will be returned from one Transform.
Maltego Classics
It has extended functionality and capabilities when compared to the Community Edition. Maltego Classic is a commercial application and needs a license key that’s valid to work. The Classic edition is used in a commercial environment. There are no limitations to the number of Entities that can be returned from a single Transform. It has a wide range of formats to which graphs can be exported.
Maltego XL
Maltego XL is also a commercial version of Maltego and is used for large investigations. It includes all the capabilities and features of Maltego Classic but with the enhanced capability of working with extremely large graphs. Maltego XL allows you to map out a clear threat picture of your entire network making it easy to identify weak points and abnormalities. Maltego XL is an enhanced version of the Classic GUI and is used to visualize graphs larger than 10,000 Entities up to 1 000 000 on a single graph.
Depending on the version of Maltego you are using, all versions of Maltego have these features in common.
- Create graph export options that include images ( jpg, bmp, png)
- Generate PDF report
- Tabular format both for export and import ( csv, xls, xlsx)
- GraphML